


Playing in the Dark

by starsgazingback



Category: CBS Clarice, Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Clannibal, F/M, Mutual Pining, hannibal having nightmares is my trademark, i am a simple woman, mutual unwanted pining, nobody gets eaten in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:48:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29854185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsgazingback/pseuds/starsgazingback
Summary: Short Clannibal drabble with mutual unwanted pining; based on a scene from the CBS Clarice show
Relationships: Hannibal Lecter & Clarice Starling, Hannibal Lecter/Clarice Starling
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	Playing in the Dark

There’s a dream Starling keeps having and the anticipation of it keeps her up at night. There’s an image, a sensation her unconsciousness seems to delight in reliving, much to waking Clarice’s chagrin-bordering-on-horror. Rarely do her dreams invade her waking life - she’s disciplined like that - but it’s been a rough 48 hours. 

She likes the tedium of the ugly metal desk they assign her; it’s near the middle of the room, just another desk in a sea of boring desks, and all this makes her feel oddly welcome, as if she belongs, as if she’s wanted, part of a team. The desk and its chair look worn but they’re functional. It lacks personality but Clarice knows she carries enough… _personality_ already. Jack Crawford has taught her that in the absence of her comforting familiarity, professionalism is best; sterility; cold, rational, organized - she’s reaching into a drawer and the boyish chortles have already begun. Starling feels eyes creeping up her spine; it makes her shoulders tense against her will. Have they set something to burst out at her from the half-open drawer in some obnoxious hazing ritual? No… it’s a gift basket - when she gets the “joke”, she slams the drawer shut.

The comment about lotion from one of the chuckling men echoes dimly in the back of her skull. She won’t look at any of them, won’t give them the satisfaction of her rage. She feels the stinging twinge of the insult, the condescension bruising her ego, but it’s the disrespect for the atrocities this joke mocks that really dig at her, make her want to act out in retribution. 

She’s avoided this topic in therapy, sometimes without grace, because the jokes people (mainly FBI cronies and newspaper headlines) launch at her make her think of Miggs and how _he_ died and Clarice has simply not dealt with any of that. The dream invades the waking day now; it’s been a long 48 hours…

It’s cold in the basement - and dark, because the lights are out - and Starling feels like she’s talking into nothing, into void. And the void is not cruel or kind, but she knows it’s waiting - _he’s_ waiting. The anticipation builds and crests and bursts with a harsh clang of a drawer pushed out toward her. Clarice is shivering and grateful for the towel, the thoughtfulness in the silence. Maybe she mutters “Thanks” to no reply - then the lights come on (”Thank you, Barney” the memory of his voice vibrates, unbidden, into the memory of her silent dream). 

But then the dream always shifts and she’s grasping the bars of his much-too-open cell now. She’s finished crying but the lambs are screaming in her furthest memory and Dr. Lecter’s maroon eyes hold her suspended in time as she reaches through the barrier to him, grasping for any help; she _needs_ him. He obliges, with a cold quip to throw the scent because the arms grabbing her and dragging her into shadows cannot know, they must not know, how he brushed her finger and hid his clue on a map. 

_God created the world in 7 days._ It took half as many for Dr. Lecter and Clarice Starling to wriggle into each other’s brains, for him to kill for her, for her to earn his trust and betray him, to send each other’s universes spinning and colliding and shattering into something new and strange. Maybe god created the world - but Clarice set the devil loose on it. That’s the dream, silly as it is, but she relives it on the hardest, loneliest nights. The dream - the nightmare - is simple: she let him get close enough to touch and smell and remember, to set her on a path so clear and murky and perfect and difficult, that even while awake, she wonders if he’s still watching. Is he laughing as she fucks everything up? Is he amused, watching her point her ruthless, penetrating gaze at someone more deserving? Or is he proud of her, how brilliantly she can still shine, rising out of the muck they try to sink her in? It’s a bad dream, she tells herself, a nightmare - not a _wish_. 

She does not discuss this in therapy. 

-

Far away, where Hannibal can’t touch her, Clarice is running, not in fear like a doe or prey, but in sheer joy and grace, like Diana, and in his mind, where he can’t touch her, he lets her be free of screaming lambs and death. 

A world away in dreams, where he can’t stop himself, where he can’t help her, Starling is standing naked and cold, shivering in the dark. There’s a snake at her foot - he wants to warn her, but he can’t speak. They’ve placed a gag in his mouth and he’s inside a box, like a trapped weasel. The snake is moving closer and it will bite her and she will die in agony - he reaches and breaks his bonds and then it’s light again and she’s sitting on the floor wearing that ugly coat, just as he remembers her. Her hair is damp and she’s amused at something; it’s as if she forgot the Doctor was watching her… The snake winds its way across her leg and Starling takes it in her hands. She admires the scales and the play of light on its delicate back, sometimes the snake becomes a necklace that she puts around her throat and only then does she glance Hannibal’s way. This time, though, it remains a snake, which she holds out to him, generously, curiously. Her eyes pierce him and he knows if he takes the snake, it will bite him and he will die - but the snake is fond of Starling; she’s safe. Hannibal keeps a safe distance and enjoys watching her play. 

Sometimes there are moments that follow this dream: memories and fantasies that shift and change and won’t be still. He can touch her again, or she touches him first, they kiss or dance or have sex. She tastes clean and feels warm - Hannibal runs from these dreams as fast as he can manage. He usually wakes alarmed, forgetful, hungry. He wonders what she likes to read. 

Awake, he can muse for hours about her cunning, gentleness, and civility - he can even admit she is _very_ pretty. That was the point, to his eternal aggravation, that was Jack’s scheme. _The world is more interesting with her in it_. But the damn dreams don’t care about reason or distance or how she is too young and also, simply, not his taste. Sometimes, Dr. Lecter lies to himself and the trouble is, he’s too clever to stop. 

Sometimes, a teacup is just a teacup and he knows it would be saner not to expect it to repair itself. 

-

One year to the day, Starling chides herself silently for marking the date in her head, their crippled anniversary. _People will say we’re in love._ She’s not looking over her shoulder for red eyes in the dark, but every year she’ll learn to look for tidy script on fancy paper and a small gift waiting on her porch. Year 1: an antique copy of _Paradise Lost_ , a note admiring how she’s grown her hair out, and his elegant signature, with the twisted “H”. Her stomach drops in anticipation.


End file.
